


What Remains of Us Is

by pinafortuna



Category: Romeo et Juliette - Presgurvic
Genre: M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, References to Character Death, i don't know where this fic came from but i haven't been able to let it go, rape is less accurate than just a complicated mutual inability to consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 16:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19949506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinafortuna/pseuds/pinafortuna
Summary: Five things Tybalt remembers; Benvolio too.“Clean yourself up,” he said, and Montague didn’t flinch, eyes wide instead, letting his hand trail off like this was—like it wasn’t what it was.





	What Remains of Us Is

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange, straight-from-the-id thing I first wrote in 2011 and it was notable because, firstly, where the hell did it come from, and secondly, it was the first sex scene I managed to write. What does that say about me, or sex, or 2011, or any host of other things? Nothing I for one care to unpack, but despite deleting this in a fit of shame years ago, I never quite managed to let it go, so here it is again, for whatever strange value it might have.
> 
> Title from Larkin's "Arundel Tomb." All that remains of the streets of this fictional Verona is love, and I suppose if I were to retroactively put some purpose behind this fic, I'd say this is the blood in the grout and the cobbles, singing its muted reply.

FIVE THINGS TYBALT REMEMBERED

His aunt was crying. Tybalt was fourteen.

Juliet was already a little girl then. Lady Capulet must have been about nineteen, Tybalt realized now. Only nineteen. At the time she’d seemed so much older—old enough that it was strange to see her alone, certainly strange to see her sitting down, holding her headdress in her hands, her hair not quite fully done up. Crying. She’d been wiping her nose on her train. It hadn’t seemed right to see; he had thought, wildly, for a moment, that if he froze he might make it so she wouldn’t notice him, and that he could sneak out and unsee it, undo the moment.

“Tybalt,” she had said, her voice soft and feminine, adult, even though it was low-pitched from the crying.

He’d been as old as Juliet was now. It hadn’t felt that way, not at the time. His knife that day had still had rabbit blood on it from the afternoon; he remembered that.

“Come here,” she’d said.

He had, and that’s when he noticed the torn clothes. He could see a swell of breast and he hadn’t known how not to look.

She caught his glance. “Do you want to?” she’d asked.

“To –” he’d begun to say, not knowing how he’d finish the sentence, and she pulled him forward, put her hand over his cock, started rubbing through his jerkin.

“I would, with you,” she said, her eyes veiled, skittering. “I will. You’re—wild, and strong, you can’t be tamed. You’ve got fight, I, I.” She paused, her breath hitched, her hand sped. She went faster; Tybalt realized his eyes had lidded. “I would, with you, I could—”

“Stop,” Tybalt said; and, sharply, with a gasp, as if her hand had touched something hot, she snatched it back. Her eyes looked up to meet his, and they were wide, shocked, bright hazel in the light; it was too late anyway and he’d come, unexpected and unbidden with a spasm, and they had both looked away, and he had run.

*

This whole weird thing he had going with Benvolio was probably Tybalt’s fault, but what else was he supposed to have done given the situation?

He still remembered his skull being shoved into brick and briefly blacking out, waking up to find himself surrounded by punks in blue.

“Look at him,” one said; another, “Look at that _mouth_.”

“You know what mouths like that are made to do, Tybalt?” asked another.

“Remember that girl you and your buddies tore to ribbons?” the loudmouthed one said. “Remember her, Capulet? She was my sister.” His hand was already at his breeches.

Tybalt had a certain sense of self-preservation. He had been scanning their faces. The bewildered look in Benvolio’s eyes was new: that was promising. And it was Benvolio; if Tybalt was going to fuck his way out of this, he might as well fuck by choice. He threw himself forward, briefly on all fours, and then looked up to meet the lucky winner’s eyes.

Who froze like a deer in the headlights on interpreting Tybalt’s look, and Tybalt thought about Shy Montague’s first skirmish ending like this, having an orgasm sucked out of him with fellow Montague scum whooping and sniggering around him, and that made it all a little easier of a prospect to think about, Montagues beating him only as he lay claim to one of their princelings. Tybalt took a moment to wonder how many gentlemen whores of Verona he was about to have to eclipse, and then pulled at Benvolio’s trousers. Loudmouthed Montague didn’t seem to care whose dick he sucked as long as he was sucking one, it seemed.

There wasn’t much doing getting the Montague ready; he was already half-hard before Tybalt managed to shove his trousers down. Tybalt muscled past his revulsion at everything about this, the blue, the crowd, the sheer proximity of the Montague’s member, and forced his gaze up.

He caught Benvolio’s eyes and made sure he held them, made sure the Montague was looking as he opened his mouth, licked a long stripe down the length of his cock, and then took it down. He choked for a moment before managing to beat down his gag reflex, saliva pooling and dribbling down the shaft as he moved. Benvolio’s eyes closed and he shuddered, and Tybalt thought, Easy now. Easy. He slowed down, moving to lave at the head. There was no way Benvolio would be able to kill him. Montagues had two attitudes to sex. There was Loudmouthed Montague, who’d have Tybalt suck him off as some sort of tawdry, tired revenge, and then, high on endorphins, get violent in earnest. And then there was Benvolio, who worked on some half-formed hybrid of the honor system and actual spinelessness.

Tybalt felt a hand touch down on his head, fingers light. Montague was so into this, he thought. It was embarrassing.

There was a whoop. “You know you like that, don’t you?” someone said.

“Sh,” Benvolio began, voice strangled. “Shut up.”

A stray Montague whooped again, and Benvolio snapped out: “Shut _up_!”

They did.

And just like that, it was different. Montagues circling in awkward silence as Benvolio started to undergo a religious experience at Tybalt’s bidding. Benvolio, shuddering, falling apart around Tybalt’s mouth. God, Tybalt thought, I better have called it right about this guy or they really will kill me after this.

But he had. He must have. Benvolio’s hand was still in his hair, and he was starting to thrust, helpless abortive jerks, no commitment or intent. People who fell apart like this and forgot to even pretend this was about humiliation—people who didn’t know how to turn this into violence—they didn’t know to get violent after. This wasn’t the prelude, for people like Benvolio, it wasn’t an opening act, this was the main event, get it over with and everyone can go home.

Benvolio’s hand was starting to pull at his hair. It’s going to knot, he thought irritably, and started speeding up.

And what if he’d got it wrong and Benvolio wasn’t calling the shots here at all? He tried to quash the thought and it wouldn’t. What if this was some kind of initiation process for them, some sort of sick cherry-popping ritual? Even if he managed to make it good, even if Benvolio fucking saw God, what’s to say he could do anything to stop the others once Tybalt was done? 

Tybalt swirled his tongue and Benvolio groaned, and Tybalt looked up, meeting his eyes, and he tried to say, his mouth stupidly full and his face looking ridiculous, he tried, he _tried_ , wordlessly, to say: “Please.”

Benvolio came immediately and Tybalt pulled back in disgust, spitting what had got in his mouth. Benvolio didn’t seem to notice that, a hand faltering onto Tybalt’s shoulder and leaning on it for balance. Okay. Five whole seconds and no one had kicked him in the ribs, that was promising.

“We done here?” said Tybalt, voice hoarse.

There was a brief silence, and a Montague, thank God, thank God, looked at Benvolio.

“It's - it's done," he said.

Loudmouthed Montague spit in Tybalt’s hair on his way off. “Make him lick it up,” said another, but Benvolio shook his head and looked such a hilarious wreck that they dropped it. He couldn’t look at him without feeling disgusted, and Tybalt. Should have felt relieved, he’d called it right, it was going to be fine, but he felt sick instead.

“I,” Benvolio began, and Tybalt shook him off his shoulder, stood up.

“Clean yourself up,” he said, and Montague didn’t flinch, eyes wide instead, letting his hand trail off like this was—like it wasn’t what it was. Tybalt stood up, left the alley on his own feet, didn’t let himself stumble until well away; Benvolio stayed there.

*

Tybalt’s first time—his first real time, if that meant anything—was with Maria, the firebrand with the chip on her shoulder. She’d been throwing herself at him for a while, and he thought why not.

It had been okay, as far as that goes. Better than anything he’d had up to that point, though he was pretty sure she had broken skin scratching his back. He liked her better clothed, he decided.

“I was worried you liked older women,” she said, winking. Maria was not exactly timid. He supposed that’s why he liked her.

“Older women like me,” Tybalt answered.

“How about Montague boys?” she asked.

He stiffened.

“It’s uh, not a lot of people know about it,” she said. “For Christ’s sake let that knife go, Jesus, I only got it from the Montague bitch with the braids. She said something and I beat it out of her, that’s all.”

“I did what I had to do,” he said shortly. He forced himself to let the dagger go.

“Nothing I haven’t done,” she said affably. “I got my own back at the guy, though.”

“Bite his balls off?”

“Cut them off, later,” she said. There was a beatific pause.

“I can’t tell if you’re serious,” he said.

“I am,” she said. “I don’t think he made it home. There was a lot of blood.”

“Jesus.”

“He’d made me suck him off,” she said, with sudden viciousness. And then, calming down as rapidly: “You got your own back at Benvolio yet?”

“Not all of us are machete-happy dick-hackers,” he said, clenching a fist. “And nobody made me do it. I mean, it was just my way out, it was nothing I wouldn’t have fucked anyway, so it’s fine, it wasn’t a thing.” He said it and it felt like an obvious lie, which was strange because it was true, it wasn’t as if they.

“You okay?” she asked.

“He was pathetic,” said Tybalt, lip curling. “It doesn’t even–– You should have seen his face.”

“Really?” she said. “Maybe you just have better technique than I do.”

“Obviously.”

“Tell you what,” she said. “I ever see him, I’ll give him extra hell. Till you get round to finishing it.”

“Appreciate it,” he said, and then: “Maria?”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure his mouth is intact.”

*

The night of the party was maybe one of the worse nights in Tybalt’s life.

He remembered leaving the main hall hoping to find Juliet, and he _remembered_ the scream. It was Maria’s, guttural and shrieked and bellowed all at once, the sort of sound that happened three different ways out of the same voicebox, and he thought he understood how a banshee might go. It wasn’t a shout for help; it was a battlecry.

Giulia was on the floor and Maria was wrestling a wiry man almost a foot taller than herself.

“It’s Mercutio!” she roared in his general direction.

“Stop _screaming_!” the man shouted. “We were just having fun!”

“Yeah,” said Tybalt, whip-taut behind him, his voice a promise. “Us too.”

Mercutio was fast, had always been: he ducked away before Tybalt’s knife could strike home. He tightened his arms around Maria and got to his feet, keeping her in front of him, a human shield, till he got through the door. Then he threw her forward, Tybalt shoving her aside—it was Maria, she wasn’t made of glass—and chasing him out.

Mercutio disappeared well before Tybalt gave up trying to find him, cursing everything, Juliet was _here_ tonight, and shouting into the empty corridor he was currently in: “If you touch her, Montague, I’ll kill you _slow_. Do you understand? Keep your _hands_ off her!”

“And what if she wants his hands?” he heard. He had time to recognize Benvolio’s voice before his forearm was caught, knife useless in his hand. The Montague was stronger than he looked. Or, perhaps, stronger than he had been. Before.

“How many of you assholes are there?” Tybalt asked, voice a low grunt.

“Not many,” Benvolio answered. “Not tonight. Let him be, Tybalt. Mercutio was just having some fun.”

“Oh, I know all about your lot’s _fun_.” Tybalt wrenched forward––he hadn’t learned enough, the Montague, his hold so easy to break––and, God, was he unarmed? Tybalt saw fear, unschooled and useless, and––something else, surprise. Surprise. What had he thought would happen? The corridor was too dark for his blade to glint as it pressed against the Montague’s throat. 

It bobbed, and then stilled, as did the body beneath him. “It wasn’t––that’s not our fun,” he said, eyes closing hard, the absurdity of the statement, the cruelty, “it’s––we’re not Montagues tonight.”

“You can’t cut out a name so easily.” Tybalt flexed his fingers. “If you want me to cut out your name––if you want me to cut out what makes you one of them––” 

“I never—I _never_ made you do that!”

Tybalt _shoved_ , knife dropping. He’d do this with his bare hands. The Montague’s back hit the wall. “Oh, didn’t you?” he said. “You didn’t stop me, either. You were having a grand old time.”

Benvolio angled his face away, looked down. “I – never asked you to,” he said.

“Didn’t you hear me, Montague?” Tybalt hissed. “You – didn’t – _stop me, either_.”

Benvolio’s teeth clicked in the air and Tybalt took a moment to process that this Montague had just tried to _bite_ him, that was just – well actually it was very Maria of him, but –

Benvolio’s face did something complicated, anger and something darker, crueler, plaintive and pained beneath it. “For your information, you didn’t ask,” he said, and mashed his mouth forward to Tybalt’s.

It was sickening, and for a moment Tybalt felt a visceral knot in his stomach and physical memories being returned, and he couldn’t breathe; and then hatred, sheer, vitriolic hatred rose up in him in place of vomit, and he realized how disgusting, how _pathetic_ this was, this Montague who was going to ape some sort of love at him to cover his own weakness, and Tybalt thought, I want to tear it open. I want to slice it down, rip everything he has wide open till it rots. Benvolio started licking in past his lips and Tybalt bit, bit and tried to draw blood; and as Benvolio tried to pull away he turned and shoved him bodily, fencing him in against the wall, because he’d finish this charade, finish it and burn it down.

Vindictively, Tybalt moved his hand to Benvolio’s cock, not shocked to find it half hard. He got a knee up between the Montague’s legs and Tybalt started rubbing, and for a while they both sort of kept at it, rutting at each other and grunting into each other’s mouths, until Benvolio shuddered and Tybalt guessed that was that. 

“Not,” said Benvolio, and pushed forward, his hand moving to Tybalt’s cock. “I’ll,” he added, but like hell he would, and Tybalt pushed back, shoving him at the wall hard, circling his wrists, pushing his arms to the wall, hard. Tybalt started to thrust proper, and Benvolio looked down––looked at nothing, eyes closed, adjusted the angle of his thigh as if without thinking, offering the long lean expanse of him until Tybalt was rutting against it, finding a rhythm and pushing. Tybalt could feel Benvolio’s shoulders knocking at the bricks behind him, and so he reached his hands around to haul him up properly, Benvolio’s legs braced around his thighs, off the ground entirely, and Tybalt could feel the hard, the clearly bruising knocks of Benvolio’s back against the wall. A hand scrambled at his hair. Tybalt couldn’t shake it off so he shoved forward, landed his mouth on Montague’s neck and _bit_ , and Benvolio let out a helpless cry that made Tybalt curse, hips bucking out of all rhythm. He felt hands knotting in his hair and–– “No,” he ground out, furious, wanting to spit death with the word. “No,” and he pulled the Montague’s hand off, the sudden removal of support from his weight startling a ridiculous, high-pitched sound from the Montague as he stumbled inelegantly. “No,” Tybalt said again, “you don’t touch me. You take this, you take––”

“I’m sorry,” he heard the Montague say. “I’m––” and Tybalt pushed away, unable to bear the proximity, unable to bear this body alive, and wanted––oh, he wanted to take his pleasure, but was there nothing for it after all but to kill him _first_ , not after, and––the Montague was trying to sink down, he realized, and Tybalt was furious. He wanted him to do it, wanted him to dare, wanted to grab his knife again and slash the pale throat open around his cock and watch it bleed out. For now he grabbed Benvolio’s hair, shoved his head hard so that he landed on his knees with a crack, said: “Careful, Montague, because it won’t be good for you. I’ll make you lap it up.”

“Fuck,” said Benvolio, voice wrecked, which was not the desired response but the sound jolted down Tybalt’s spine.

He didn’t cut his throat open. He didn’t even stop him, and Benvolio licked his lips first, rubbed his thumb briefly on the underside of the head, and then looked up, as if asking for––not permission, something deeper, and oh, if he wanted absolution, he could have it, Tybalt thought, he could give it to him, but not from this––before opening his mouth. 

*

The Montague hated it when Tybalt touched him in public, and so Tybalt did it all the time.

He’d found out by accident. Mercutio had been talking up a game again, and Tybalt had approached only to have some Montagues pull him away. It seemed he was always surrounded by them, like roaches; they never traveled alone.

He pushed one off him and only then noticed the white-blond hair, and the way Benvolio curled his lip at the touch.

Now that wasn’t something Tybalt was born to resist.

He circled closed, moved his mouth to Benvolio’s neck, blew softly at it. “What you gonna do, Montague?” he said.

Benvolio jerked away, raised a fist, and Tybalt smiled to let him know it was just _fascinating_.

II. FIVE THINGS BENVOLIO REMEMBERS

He doesn’t remember falling in love with Romeo. At least, not the kind of love it was by the end.

What he remembers is the time they were six. Romeo had collected a pile of dandelions and was getting increasingly distressed when the other kids stomped too close to them, sending great puffs of seeds out into the air and destroying the soft, childish aesthetic of the pile.

He remembers being ten, and Romeo talking about what he would do when he inherited the Montague estate. He remembers being twelve and being attacked on the streets by a lone Capulet, and pulling out the dagger he’d gotten for his birthday that year in honor of becoming a man, and _oh_ , it had never been intended as a decoration. He remembers being made fun of for never yet having drawn blood, but not by Romeo.

And he remembers sixteen. He remembers Romeo seizing his hand once, and moving to pat him on the shoulder, and realizing abruptly that theirs was not a reciprocal relationship, that all of a sudden things had changed, with a realization that they had changed much, much earlier without his noticing.

Well, shit, he thought.

*

“Hey Benvolio, you like mouths like that, don’t you?” said Luciano, and before Benvolio could even process what that meant, what he was implying, what he probably knew, what everyone might just as well already know, Tybalt the Capulet was tearing at his trousers.

Benvolio hadn’t known what to do. Could he say stop? Would that make things worse? Capulet was already bruised all over, his hair was matted with blood, and he clearly wasn’t down for the count. He had attacked a whole slew of Montagues, practically unprovoked and without reason, and when the wide glint of his eye briefly caught Benvolio’s, it hadn’t mattered in that moment how many of them there were to his one, how low the chances that he could land a single meaningful hit: Benvolio had feared for his life. Tybalt had defied reason, a red phantasm with his hair flying and his mouth wide, teeth like fangs and his knife glinting from the dim lights. 

_He’s Mars himself_ , Benvolio had thought, seeing him roll Luciano off his back as if shaking off water. Even when they circled in on him, and Brabantio got in the one good kick that threw him off balance and Lucentio dove, grabbing Tybalt by the neck to pull him down and smash his head into the pavement; his arm got slashed deep for his pains and Benvolio couldn’t even tell by the end of it where Tybalt’s blood ended on the pavement and his began.

And now here he was, blooming purple stains on his right cheek, dark crests of already-drying blood on his chin and smeared in the corner of his mouth, mats of dirt and pebbles on his face, a sheen of sweat and grime on his neck moving down to his chest, on his knees in front of Benvolio, panting still, irregular and shallow and bestial, and Benvolio realized too slow and too late, always too slow, always too late, as useless to stop this as anything else, and Tybalt was smirking, smirking horribly, before opening his mouth to— _fuck_ —to lick slowly along the length of Benvolio’s cock.

The rest was a blur of sensation, too many sensations coming on too fast and over which Benvolio had no control, too fast and too relentless for him to take stock, to tell it to stop and wait for him, and God, was this what the other boys were on about, they were onto something, really, and if a Capulet was like this then what if–– He held out his hand to land in Tybalt’s hair, fisted it, trying to anchor himself somewhere, trying to come back down to earth and process, when Tybalt opened his eyes again, looking up straight at him, and Benvolio felt—everything, and shuddered, and let go. He leaned forward when it was over, holding his stomach, gulping for air as if he had been drowning, and felt, irrationally, that he wanted someone to hold him, stroke the hair out of his face, tell him it was fine. And then he didn’t want it anymore, because he knew already it wasn’t fine; it wasn’t fine; it was dirty, he was dirty, and he was humiliated, open and exposed and exposed and exposed and torn apart.

What there was, was Luciano making some lewd comment, and chuckles, and Tybalt, looking feral as he wiped his mouth, saying in a voice like gravel, like stone: “Are we done here?”

*

Benvolio remembers seeing a flash of red and leaping, and not expecting the voice which came from it.

It was Tybalt.

“You didn’t stop me either,” the Capulet said, and Benvolio in that moment really did want to kill him. Because he hadn’t asked for it, he hadn’t even wanted it, he hadn’t known what to—how to—

“Didn’t you hear me, Montague?” Tybalt said again. “ _You. Didn’t. Stop. Me. Either._ ”

*

And afterward, Benvolio ran into him again, as Mercutio laughed and poked Tybalt and his wild eyes turned to Benvolio, searing through the mask, and grabbed his arm once. Every nerve in Benvolio screamed: what had happened was a closed loop and it was not meant for a place with Romeo in it. He shook Tybalt’s arm off with a violent snap: “Touch me and I’ll kill you,” he said. It was a password of Verona, but never till now had Benvolio known what it felt like to mean it. _Touch me in front of him again and I’ll end you_ , he thought, and suddenly realized whose tone he was echoing. _I’ll kill you for it and I’ll kill you_ slow.

He didn’t say it; he turned instead, and said to Romeo: “Run.”

They didn’t find out where Romeo ran to after the party, or even whether he had made it out safe; they just had to assume, because they couldn’t find him. And Benvolio thought often of how he hadn’t appreciated enough the pre-game that night. That Romeo, the light in Verona, would glint instead with the same indomitable fury of Tybalt’s eyes and could kill a man, that Benvolio would miss Romeo like an ache in his soul but would miss Tybalt with every muscle and every tendon, with every nightmare he couldn’t dare remember and every burst of guilt he could never acknowledge. That Benvolio would feel hollow and carved out in ways he couldn’t dare understand.

And how flippantly he had let it end, the wild dancing when Romeo had grabbed his hand and twirled him, a fit of camp in a night of freedom. How Romeo had said they were kings and had meant that to him they were. How Benvolio had forgotten anything existed beyond the music and the hand on his, had felt like he could take it for granted, that it would follow him out into the world, a world which would never, had never rendered him mute and lost and helpless, paralyzed, a victim of wild eyes that glazed over until the Marslike face around them fell back lifeless. How life was rolled into a ball and all of it belonged to a name that sang.

*

“Hate this town?” said Mercutio. “Hate is for my mother. I love this place. It’s me, every stone and brick and shit-stained statue in it, and one day I’m going to burn everyone in it alive.”


End file.
